The Grave of Bo Carter

Armenter Chatmon

(aka Bo Carter)

Nitta Yuma Cemetery

Sharkey County, Mississippi

Headstone Location: 33.021206, -90.853481

This project came out of the 2015 replacement of Sam Chatmon's marker in Hollandale,  but it also grew out of the failed efforts of other researchers. In the early 2000s, a Greenville cemetery investigator showed an Ole Miss master's candidate to the burial ground in hopes of locating a marker. The two men searched the burial ground, yet found nothing, and left unsatisfied. In the early 2010s, an enthusiast from Michigan traveled to Nitta Yuma to look for his headstone. He also came up empty. In a later article, the hapless northerner claimed to be searching for the folks who take care of the cemetery.  The Mt. Zion Memorial Fund picked up where logic eluded him. We knocked on the door of the home in front of the cemetery, which turned out to be the home of the landowners sister. Roy Schilling, of Hollandale, lord of the Sam Chatmon Blues Festival,  played a key role in pitching the project to Henry Vick Phelps III, the patriarch of Nitta Yuma.

You can view his entire discography (courtesy of Stefan Wirz) here
Click here to read Elaine Hughes account of Bo Carter performing at her house in Vicksburg.

Event Poster - Handmade by John Fabke

The stone was ordered at the end of May. At the beginning of July, we received word that it would not be done in time for the dedication. Thus, I cancelled the element of the marker that proved time consuming for the original monument company. I contacted a local engraver in plenty of time to get the black granite engraving of Bo’s National done in time, but the original monument company did not forward the specs for the engraving until three weeks later, despite two or three phone calls each week and several promises to forward the information. The local man had a crude version completed on the day of the dedication, but we decided to take a little time to get it right. The marker, after all, looks wonderful without it.

The back of the marker contains two single lines of lyrics from Bluebird B6295 ("All-Around Man") and Brunswick 7080 ("Corinne Corinna"). The inscription on the front came out of the fundraising campaign for the marker. Along with their donations, supporters were encouraged to write some thoughts down as well. One student of Bo Carter's complex guitar work wrote the engraved text and  made an online donation. He did not recall writing it at the dedication, however.

DeWayne Moore, director of the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund

An estimated seventy people attended the dedication of Bo Carter's headstone in Nitta Yuma, MS, including friends from California, Washington, Michigan, Georgia and Mississippi. Nitta Yuma is a hamlet of maybe twenty inhabitants, on an old plantation in Sharkey County, Nitta Yuma Cemetery sits tucked into the corner of a huge field of corn and flush with Deer Creek., and we all drove through dusty paths to get there.

DeWayne Moore, director of Mt Zion Memorial Fund, which erected the monument and organized the dedication, spoke about the marker of Sam Chatmon in nearby Hollandale, and how working with locals on that project inspired this project. He also stated that the monument would also serve to protect the cemetery from agricultural encroachment, as it sits on the edge of a large corn field. Next to speak was Henry Vick Phelps III, owner of the plantation, who cooperated with the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund and granted a perpetual and public easement to the cemetery and hosted the event.

Henry Vick Phelps III

Miles Floyd prepared an amazing speech about his step-father, Ezell Chatmon, who had on his deathbed made him promise to fulfill three wishes. He wanted him to take care of his grandmother, take care of his mother, and make sure that Bo Carter gets the recognition he so very much deserves for his amazing recording career. Breaking into tears as he talked at the end, he stated that the marker was one more step towards completing the last wish and concluded: "Bo, I'm proud to be your grandson, very proud. And I can't wait to get to Bolton, Mississippi, stand beside your son's grave, and say your three wishes...have been fulfilled. Thank you.”

Miles Floyd

Mr. Floyd wanted his lawyer, Barry Shrum, to say a few words in the absence of Patrick Leblanc, a Greenville native and friend who has been helping to recover royalties made form from Eric Clapton's "Alberta, Alberta," which is actually a reworded cover of Bo Carter's 1928 classic "Corrine Corrina."

Alan Orlicek, the new engraver for the black granite, came up and helped unveil the headstone. Everyone was impressed with the marker and rushed to look at it and pose for pictures. The mayor of Rolling Fork had asked to say a few words in the spot on the program set aside for special guests, but about fifteen minutes after the unveiling, Cheseborough grabbed the National and started playing and singing, "I Want You to Know." The crowd quieted down and the mayor looked over at me. The crowd applauded at the end of the tune, and I didn’t want to interrupt at that point. I’m glad to hear it worked out well. I apologize to the mayor.

Bill Gandy, of Potts Camp, MS

Cheseborough spoke and invited Bill Gandy, owner of Bo Carter's guitar, to speak as well, asking him to tell the story of how he happened to acquire it and later discover its history. Beforehand, I had spoken to Gandy and he told me about bringing Kenny Brown (Gandy's neighbor, companion on the drive from Potts Camp to Nitta Yuma, and longtime R.L. Burnside sideman) to the event. Brown and I had recently discussed the headstone dedication of Joe Calicott back in the 1990s, and I intentionally left them off the program as a pleasant surprise to all those in attendance. Kenny Brown did not fail to wow the crowd using his metal slide on the National of Bo Carter and playing a tune by Muddy Waters.

To read more about Bill Gandy and Bo's National, click HERE

Kenny Brown

Bill Steber and Ron Bombardi performed an amazingly stellar rendition of “Sitting On Top of the World.” Even though we had never discussed playing only one song, it was interpreted that the popular song title underneath their names on the program meant their set needed to be limited to that song only. Moses Crouch sang “County Farm Blues” and then Andy Cohen led all the musicians in "Corrine Corrina," which the musicians tried to get the crowd to sing along on, but they never could get together on the words themselves. The event, nevertheless, was perhaps the most heavily attended and most rural of my tenure. Andy Cohen was amazing 

Bill Steber and Ron Bombardi

Then we all trucked out of the cemetery, up the hill to Nitta Yuma proper, for a reception in the chapel, where Andy Cohen was sitting up front playing for a dozen or so people. He took turns doing songs with Steve Cheseborough, who stuck rigidly to Bo Carter while Andy did Rev Gary Davis and Lonnie Johnson in his own style. When Miles Floyd and his family came in Cheseborough played "All Around Man," Miles’ favorite Bo Carter song. He loved it. He even had it engraved on the back of the marker.

Andrew Cohen & Moses Crouch

Another highlight was meeting Leslie Miller who brought two photos of Bo Carter playing for her and other local children in 1956! He was playing the National. He wore coveralls in one picture, as if he had come from work as a mechanic. In the other he is dressed up and accompanied by a fiddler. I asked about the repertoire. She said he would start with "Tennessee Waltz," saying his other songs were too dirty for children! But he also played other songs which she doesn't remember. She said it was a frequent event, his performances in the area. She is going to talk to a woman in her 90s who might remember more about it, and get back to me with any info.

The Dedication of Bo Carter's Headstone - July 29, 2017

Nitta Yuma is off Highway 61 in Sharkey County, Mississippi

The grave marker (without the black granite inlay of Bo Carter's National at the top)

Henry Vick Phelps III

Bill Steber and Ron Bombardi of the Jake Leg Stompers

Miles Floyd, the grandson of Bo Carter

Kenny Brown, testing out the hill country blues on Bo Carter's National

Bill Gandy, the owner of Bo Carter's National

Steve Cheseborough, introducing everyone to the music of Bo Carter

Andy Cohen and Moses Crouch

MZMF Director DeWayne Moore

An Interview with Old Time Record Producer H.C. Speir

by David Evans

[In the 1920s and 1930s, the key link between the various local folk musics and their eventual capture on commercial disc was provided by the A & R (Artist and Repertoire) Man — a combination talent scout, producer, manager, etc. The great early A & R men have been likened to folksong collectors on field trips. In only a few cases have the career's and roles of these men been treated in more than a few passing sentences (see, for example, "I'm a Record Man — Uncle Art Satherley Reminisces, " JEMFQ #25, p. 18; or Mike Seeger's essay on Frank Walker in The New Lost City Ramblers Song Book, pp. 26-29). On the following pages, blues collector and authority David Evans offers some comments on a lesser known A & R figure. Evans has contributed many book reviews to the JEMFQ.] 

The news of the death earlier this year of Henry C. Speir, former talent scout and agent for several record companies and discoverer of many great blues, gospel, jazz, and hillbilly artists, prompted me to take a look at the notes of an interview I had done with him. Although it was by no means comprehensive, it did elicit some information which may shed some light on the aspect of the recording industry in which Speir played a part. Outside of the mention of him as their original discoverer by blues "rediscoveries" Son House and Skip James, the first news of Speir's career came from Mississippi blues researcher Gayle Dean Wardlow, who located him and published an article on his career called "Legends of the Lost" in several installments of Blues Unlimited in 1966. This has been reprinted in Back Woods Blues, edited by Simon A. Napier (Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex: Blues Unlimited Publications, 1968; pp. 25-28).

The article is a general outline of his career in the music business, though some of the information in it has subsequently proved inaccurate. The only other published information on Speir comes from my interview and appears in my book Tommy Johnson (London: Studio Vista Limited, 1971; pp. 45-68, 80). This information dealt only with Tommy Johnson, however.

My interview was conducted at Speir's home in Pearl City, across the Pearl River from Jackson, Mississippi, on the evening of 1 September 1966. Others present were Speir's wife, Gayle Wardlow, and Marina Bokelman, who took notes on paper. Speir did not want his conversation tape recorded, as he distrusted his memory on many matters so far back in the past. In view of this, I cannot vouch for the complete accuracy of the information presented here, although I can say that it was written down as Speir told it. I was mostly interested in information on Tommy Johnson and Speir's methods of dealing with blues artists, and my time was limited. Consequently, I did not question him extensively about his own life or the many other artists he discovered and recorded. These topics are dealt with, however, at some length in Wardlow 's article.

 I must at this point regretfully mention that Speir expressed a number of stereotyped views of Negroes and of musicians in particular. These views were not always negative, however, and in many cases it was difficult to tell whether they were based on commonly held beliefs from his own cultural background or his particular experiences with musicians. I will only discuss here his views which pertained to music. It is perhaps ironic that a man like Speir could hold stereotyped views about Negroes yet also have a deep appreciation for and a considerable understanding of black music. Yet such was the case. His personal and business relationships with black musicians were apparently very honest and open, and I have never heard a bluesman who had dealings with him say anything but good about Henry C. Speir.

Speir was born in Mississippi in 1895. He grew up hearing and liking black music. In around 1919 he went to New Orleans and got a job assembling phonographs. The cabinets would be made in the North and shipped to New Orleans where the motor, handle, tone arm, and other parts were added. At this time he got the idea that black music should be recorded, and he kept trying to convince others of the feasibility of the idea. It was, of course, in 1920 that Mamie Smith did record the first blues, so that it may have been that with Speir and others urging such a policy the time was ripe for a change in industry attitudes.

Speir was unable to become involved in the recording of music at this time because the climate of New Orleans was too damp for the spring-operated stylus arms of the recording machines. This was remedied in 1923 when the industry switched to cable and weight arms. In about 1926 he opened a furniture and music store in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, and began searching for local musical talent for the record companies. The last session he is known to have organized, according to Gayle Wardlow, was in Hattiesburg for A. R. C. in 1936, He had earlier tried to persuade the Jackson City Council to help him purchase the bankrupt Paramount Record Company and move it to Jackson, but they were reluctant because of the deepening Depression, and the idea was dropped. In 1942 Speir' s store went up in flames, and he quit the record business completely for real estate. When I interviewed him, his main interest was organic gardening, to which he devoted much of his time.

In addition to the 1936 session, Speir supervised two others in Jackson, one in 1930 for Okeh and one in 1935 for Decca. He was always a freelance operator, as his main business was his store which stocked all the major labels. His connection with most of his artists was as a talent scout and agent. He scouted all over Mississippi and in New Orleans, though most of the music in that city was jazz, and he was more interested in blues and spirituals. By the late 1930' s the companies discontinued making recordings of black music in Mississippi, Memphis, and New Orleans, and Speir' s services were probably no longer required. It must also be admitted that although he probably unearthed and got on record more great blues talent than anyone else in the history of the recording industry, very few of his artists were commercial successes. Their music may have sounded good to Speir 's ear, but their sounds were probably too local and lacking in national appeal. Gayle Wardlow has reported that Speir was responsible for the appearance on records of Uncle Dave Macon and Kokomo Arnold, but in the case of Macon this is known to be inaccurate, and with Arnold it seems quite unlikely. Probably his most popular blues artist was Charley Patton, really only a moderate seller, and for hillbilly music the Leake County Revelers. Speir did, however, claim the honor of putting the first preachers of both races on records. 

Rev. Grayson - April 19, 1928

The white preacher was a Rev. [C.M.] Grayson, [former evangelist and then pastor of a church in Magee, MS] who recorded for Columbia in Memphis on the topic of Judas. He could not remember the black preacher's name, but he was from the Delta although living in New Orleans. The recording was done in Montgomery. I have not been able to trace either of these sessions, and in any case no race records are known to have been recorded in Montgomery before World War II.

Some of the confusion in Speir's recollections may be due to the fact that he often made test recordings of singers in Jackson or elsewhere and sent them to the companies for approval. If the response was favorable, the normal procedure was to send the artists north for recording in a studio. Sometimes Speir would go on these trips. On one to Chicago he remembers being surprised to encounter some black recording engineers, one of whom was probably Mayo Williams. He recalls meeting Ralph Peer of Victor and noted that Peer never seemed to show any outward signs of feeling for or against the music he heard. He would simply listen calmly and then either accept or reject the selection or artist. Speir also recalls that Victor records did not sell as well as Paramounts, Columbias, and Okehs, a fact which he attributes to Victor's lack of advertising for its race series.

Speir stated that it usually took a sale of about 5,000 for a record to make money for a company. The companies would pay the artists and then give Speir a flat rate for providing singers, but often he had to buy 500 copies of the record from them "just to record some nigger." This was proof to the company that he had confidence in the record's sales potential. Then the company would send samples to all of their wholesalers. One of the company practices that particularly annoyed Speir was the sale of masters to cheap off-brand companies that would reissue the songs under pseudonyms. These records were sold at dime stores, while his own store carried only the major labels at higher prices. He also suspected that some companies would record singers while they were "practicing" a piece and then issue it under a pseudonym without the knowledge of the singer. 

Occasionally Speir would go north for sessions. He helped at some of the Paramount sessions at Grafton, Wisconsin. He would make suggestions as to whether the singer should be louder or softer. Usually blues singers were too loud and would sometimes break the diaphragm. Sometimes Speir would be able to anticipate a high note from his familiarity with the singer's music, and he would turn the recording level down for it. He recalled that black musicians never got nervous in front of a microphone, but that whites frequently did. (I have also found this generally true for black musicians in field recording situations, but I could name many exceptions.) But he believed that a Negro had to be in the right mood to sing and that most used some stimulant to produce this mood. He vividly recalls Tommy Johnson drinking "that jake leg stuff," probably Canned Heat, and remembers Jim Jackson as a dope addict. Johnson would only sing when he had a can of Canned Heat inside him.

Speir stated that it was impossible to predict who would be a "good" blues singer, i.e., a commercially successful one on record. Some would "really tear it up" in person but sound terrible on wax, and others vice versa. He had no rules for picking blues singers beyond his own personal taste. He felt that a singer should have "harmony," by which he simply meant appeal to his ear. He never took into consideration the fact that a singer might have a reputation for popularity in the black community. He also never used blues singers as scouts, though he did admit that after he began auditioning and recording singers, they would tell others to "go see Mr. Speir." Tommy Johnson came to his store in this manner, apparently having heard about him from Ishmon Bracey, of whom Speir had made test recordings that were approved by Victor. Sometimes singers would make suggestions for accompanying musicians. 

The companies wanted Speir to be sure that each singer to be recorded had at least four different songs of his own composition. Many of them could sing plenty of songs, but they were not original. In other words, they were either traditional and had already been recorded in variant form, or they were interpretations of the hit records. Sometimes Speir would suggest a title or subject to a singer that he thought was promising. To one he suggested the title "Black Snake Blues." When the record came out, Speir fixed a rubber black snake to a phonograph turntable and put it in the display window so that when it turned, the snake would jump out at the customers. Every time it would jump out, the Negroes would jump back, and he attributed good sales to this device, Speir claimed also to have helped in the writing of Kokomo Arnold's "Milk Cow Blues." He stated that at that time he didn't realize that most blues had a "code." A man would sing that he "ain't had no milk since my cow been gone," but he really meant that he hadn't had an affair with a woman in a long time. Most of this code had something to do with "nature." Speir believed that if he had known the code then, he would have known better what would sell and whether the singer was "good." He felt that today, however, he would have been just as confused, because now the music is based on movement, and he was unfamiliar with the modern dances.

Speir probably got to know Tommy Johnson best of all the blues singers he worked with. Johnson made a test of his "Cool Drink of Water Blues" which Ralph Peer approved. Speir then had to find Johnson and prepare him for his recording session. He located him playing in front of a fish fry stand up the Pearl River. Speir had to make certain that Johnson knew four different original songs. He claims that at the time Johnson could only produce two, but they worked together until he reached the required number. Johnson did two sessions for Victor in 1928 and one for Paramount in 1930. Speir doesn't know why he switched companies but assumes that Victor did not have him under contract by 1930. Often companies would simply ask Speir if he had any spare talent not under contract and would accept whomever he sent them. Johnson's Victors sold well throughout the Mississippi River valley from Milwaukee to New Orleans, and Speir thinks one may have sold 200,000. This seems highly exaggerated, however, as his Victors are all hard to find today and the Paramounts extremely rare. Speir recalls that Johnson would twist his mouth, roll his eyes, grimace, and "put a lot of expression" into his singing. The Canned Heat he drank would make him perspire profusely. This report is confirmed by others who knew Johnson. On one occasion in about 1937 Johnson got drunk in Jackson, caused a disturbance, and was thrown in jail. Speir bailed him out for $500, but Johnson immediately left town for Angle, Louisiana, where he had been living with his wife Rosa. Speir tracked him down, despite losing a whole night's sleep because of the noise of a newly-wed couple in the hotel room next to his. He found Johnson working in a field outside his house. Speir put handcuffs on him and returned him to Jackson for trial, where he was put on the county road gang. After he had served his time, he and his wife moved to Jackson permanently. Johnson continued to drop by Speir's store to chat after this incident.
 

Hopefully someone else has interviewed Speir about other aspects of his career. The role of the free-lance Southern talent scouts in the music industry is too little known despite the fact that they provided much of the finest local talent to the companies which otherwise never would have been recorded. Polk Brockman's work with hillbilly musicians in the Atlanta area is now well known, but his equally important dealings with black musicians are still largely a mystery. J. B. Long is still living in Durham, North Carolina, and some important information on him has appeared in Bruce Bastin's Crying for the Carolines (London: Studio Vista Limited, 1971), But was he also involved with hillbilly singers in the 1930's and early 1940 's? In contrast, however, the work of Ralph Lembo of Itta Bena, Mississippi, also a furniture and music store owner, is virtually unknown. He provided blues, gospel, and preaching talent for Columbia, Paramount, and Victor between 1927 and 1930, but he was never reached in time to tell his story, and his widow knew nothing of his business dealings when I spoke to her in 1967. It is known that some black musicians themselves, like Charley Jordan, Will Shade, Big Bill Broonzy, and Rev. Lonnie Mclntorsh at various times acted as talent scouts. Were there others?

 
DE--California State University Fullerton

Samuel Hopkins' Street Corner, Texas Blues--1959

Samuel Hopkins' Street Corner, Texas Blues--1959
Mack McCormick - Jazz Monthly - October 1959, p. 4-6 [Ctsy PV-RBF]

Blind Lemon Jefferson's Grave: 

Buried Broom Ritual Appears 1960s 

 
GET ONE OF THE LIMITED EDITION PRINTS OF SON HOUSE

Contemporary Artist's Rendition of Hopkins

Lightnin Hopkins is a street corner blues minstrel who lives in a world crowded by jukeboxes. Since first recording in 1946 he has produced songs for more than a dozen firms ranging from Decca and Mercury to the mysterious and suspect label which simply bore the name "Lightnin". Along his native Dowling Street in Houston's Third Ward, the coin machines abound with these cluttered and uncharacteristic examples of himself.

Sipping a beer in a corner jook joint, Lightnin will grunt disapproval at his own voice coming from the jukebox. As if in retaliation he'll wander outside, guitar in hand, to delight a circle of friends with some freely improvised blues—a mixture of narrative and song underscored by his easy, dramatic guitar.
 

Lightnin is fundamentally incapable of joining in on the trends of the music industry. He remains true to his inheritance: the simple, honest blues of wandering, begging songsters. He stays where he feels the people best understand his music. He earns his way in the world with his voice and his guitar, and he takes his satisfaction in the look of understanding that flickers across a friend's face as he sings about some intimate, common experience.
 

This attitude is the living, breathing, here and now of traditional music. Yet Lightnin is a menace to the concept of a "pure" tradition. He stands amid the great whirlpool of the blues, drawing upon it at random, bending it to suit a mood, taking impish pleasure in creating surprises—constantly shaping, shattering, and remaking the blues in his own image.
 

When on rare occasions he touches members of the cadre such as See See Rider or Trouble In Mind, fresh new verses are invariably present. Singing Long John, the Texas prison song which relates a legendary escape, he transforms it into a first person narrative, lending personal frenzy as he cries " . ... them hell's hounds, boy, coming after me."
 

His Backwater Blues has only the barest hint and glimpse of the song as Lightnin first heard it from Lonnie Johnson (and as it become famous through Bessie Smith's recording). This memory mingles with his recollection of Blind Lemon Jefferson's singing Rising High Water Blues and of Texas Alexander's singing Frost, Texas Tornado Blues. It crosses his own experience with a tornado slashing across the "Piney Woods". Dominated by Lightnin's personality, just as each of the parent songs was dominated by the inclinations of the singer, the final distillation is That Mean Old Twister. Lightnin's rich voice rings out its startling plea: "Lord—turn your twister the other way."
 

The process is of course basic. A tradition such as the blues is perpetuated not by attempts to emulate and preserve, but through growth and the contributions of many egos. Such growth occurs dramatically in the day-to-day work of Sam Hopkins. Exposed to and accepting all influences, he absorbs and contributes with a proud sense of his uniqueness. He often prefaces himself with a statement such as "Now this song I'm going to sing—don't nobody sing it this way but Lightnin Hopkins, himself, alone."
 

Born in 1912 in Leon County, Texas, Lightnin's apprenticeship was alongside Blind Lemon, Lonnie Johnson, and Texas Alexander. He has spent his life wandering the same streets and highways as Leadbelly and Blind Willie Johnson. He regards his predecessors with moderate awe and his contemporaries with scorn. Speaking of the many singers who merely imitate his manners and steal his lines, rushing off to record for minor jukebox labels, Lightnin's eyes flash murderously. Nonetheless, the number of his imitators is an index to his own influence and rank.
 

The unchallenged reigning blues minstrel of Houston's streets, Lightnin sleeps in a tawdry rented room and lives with the easy grace of royalty. On one of his rare excursions outside Texas an engagement in a Los Angeles dance hall in connection with a recording session, his billing read "Internationally famous recording star." Lightnin's scowl at this high-flown phrase was simple disinterest, a real failure to attach any significance to the statement. In his own scale of values, international fame is of small consequence. What is vital and significant is the continuing respect and adulation of those who stroll Dowling Street, crowding around him to offer coins in exchange for songs.
 

Lightnin is intensely upset by the scorn of youthful [blacks] who regard the country blues as somehow degrading to the race. The plaudits of European critics, the discographical mass of his more than 200 records, and the enthusiasm of visiting folklorists do not quite offset the sneer of a single bongo-playing jazzman from the next block. The critics, the records, the folklorists merely represent the abstract and unknown world outside of East Texas. The bongo player represents Lightnin's own tribe and culture, his roots and his audience. He belongs to this home territory and its people—and its blues tradition— with absolute kinship. Alternately the jester and the wizard serving at the royal court, he serves his culture with the sly jest and personal aside, the easy mockery of injustice and full throated cry of tragic awareness.
 

His isolation and his ignorance is self-imposed, and can be startlingly complete. During a recent recording session for Doug Dobell's limited-edition "77" label, Lightnin searched conscientiously for the proper songs "to sing for those people over across that water." He briefly considered one that begins "Buses stopped running, trains won't allow me to ride no more." He rejected it with the question, "But do they have buses and trains over there?" Some insight to the careful choice of ignorance can be gained if one considers that Lightnin has been exposed to British-based films just as much as the average American citizen. He merely disregards the world beyond his culture.
 

Even when recording for domestic consumption he is sometimes anxious to make himself understood. Singing " . . he had a little brown jersey" he felt compelled to inject the explanation "I'm talking 'bout a cow". Yet, in another song he casually commented "Play that, molly trotter" and seemed unconcerned that this vernacular name for a raccoon is pretty much unknown outside the rural South.
 

However the brash sweep of Lightnin's personality communicates itself even where literal meaning is lost. He recently participated, after squelching his own apprehensions, in a Hootenanny presented by the Houston Folklore Group. The occasion was his first experience before a concert audience or before a predominately white audience of any kind. Nonetheless within moments of his loping onstage and carelessly propping his guitar against a raised knee he had completely stolen the night. He stood before an audience accustomed to the carefully preserved ballads and showed them the raw meat of folk music, casually improvising songs about his own sex habits, his kinky hair, and his days on a chain gang, and the audience roared its approval. The impact of his personality brought the realization that they were having the rare experience of being confronted by the essence of a vital people's music.
 

In such circumstances—the street corner or the concert stage—much of his charm lies in his animation and innate plucking for responses. Midway in a song he is liable to twirl the guitar away from his body, swinging it back to finish a phrase or slap out rhythms with his palms caressing the sound board. He's able to improvise a dance, twisting and stomping his feet to lend accent to a particular song. He may pick out anguished, lingering guitar phrases, then raise a solemn finger to point at a listener, his voice filling the air "I been asking Jesus, what wrong have I done . . . "
 

In his finest moments Lightnin becomes a dramatist with an incredible knack for spontaneous rhyme and crisp, scene setting narration. He'll state an experience in the first-person present-tense—picking some intimate memory and bringing it completely forward to the moment—while the guitar suggests shifts of mood and underlines the action. For his last number of the recent concert, Lightnin slumped into a chair, noodling aimlessly until he found a simple boogie pattern to amuse himself. "In the morning I'm getting up and I've got to boogie . . ." His manner suggests coming awake and his talk rambles on about the early morning chores. The boogie slyly fades into When The Saints Go Marching In. "It must be Sunday morning, so I'm getting up and I got to boogie and then I'm got to go down the road to church ... Here I am, singing and shouting...

"I want to be in the that number"

And then they call on old Lightnin' to pray." His head bows and the guitar seems to represent a silent entreaty. "Now, I'm going back home..." The guitar imperceptibly reverts to the boogie. "...and I'm got to boogie some more." After a moment the tempo slows. Lightnin' explains, matter-of-fact, "That's when it's getting soft."
 

Lightnin's songs range over his view of modern life: Policy Game, Sad News From Korea, You Got To Work To Get Your Pay. He's spooky about singing Death Bells and reluctant to sing Tom Moore's Farm because "when I first made that song, them four Moore brothers come looking for me with a big stick." 

His finest impulses seem directed at pure autobiography. Bunion Stew, Mama and Papa Hopkins, and I'm Gonna Trip This Town present a total picture of his family.  Penitentiary Blues is based on the incident that caused him to serve time on a County road gang; Like A Turkey Thru the Corn is his dream of escape; How Sad and How Bad to be a Fool is the song apologizing to the sentencing judge who visited the road gang and was thus moved to release Lightnin; Prison Blues Come Down On Me is a bitter, evocative picture of his returning home wondering "is my family still there."
 

Just as this utterly subjective approach leads to his finest, it also leads to his faults. At times he will retreat into a sullen mood, losing interest in his audience, and content to be a dreary and poor imitation of himself. This is especially true when he works five and six hours dance hall jobs—using an amplified guitar and a drummer and having to fit his songs to fast, rocking tempos. At his worst he will repeat himself endlessly, hacking out the same tune with disinterest, monotonously sticking to a single theme of a woman "trying to quit me."
 

 A similar attitude has defaced many of his recordings. Confronted by overbearing supervisors who visit Houston on hasty field trips, thrust into the sterile environment of a sound studio, restricted to strict jukebox tempos and time limitations, Lightnin has on many of these occasions resorted to the easy and convenient cliches. "It's too bad about them records," Lightnin says: "They get me in that big room and they go watch me through a glass wall and I don't feel like nothing. Oh, course those records are good, cause everything I do is good—but they ain't the best. The best only happens when I'm feeling easy."
 

The amount of whiskey taken during a session is the clue to his inner mood. When uncomfortable, he'll drink himself to the point of sluggish indifference and a tone of self-pity will seem to dominate his voice. The phrases and mannerisms of one song will be duplicated in the next.
 

More than anything else Lightnin's comfort depends on having a familiar and enthusiastic listener opposite the microphone. On such an occasion, relaxed and with a mild whiskey glow, Lightnin enjoys his own free flowing imagination. With only a bare, fleeting notion he will charge into a song, a composition that is created and forgotten within the time of its performance. This Lightnin is the embodiment of the jazz-and-poetry spirit, representing its ancient form in the single creator whose words and music are one act.
 

When given complete freedom he will begin each session with a general statement of his particular mood. On one occasion he nodded for the tape machine to be switched on, picked a few tentative chords, and tossing his head back he noticed the rain pattering down a window, and then simply sang the thoughts uppermost in his mind: "Lord, I'm just sittin' down here thinking, what am I gonna do on this rainy day ?"
 

What he did do on that February afternoon—eleven songs telling about women, prison, worry, joy, and death—is now available on an LP released in the U.S. by Tradition Records. That session, typically, concluded with a joyous boogie in which Lightnin invites three imaginary women to come join the three men present in an after-work celebration: "Come on in ... just us three here...we gonna pulla party."
 

On a more recent session, with his thoughts directed at the British Isles, he impulsively decided on a "Blues for Queen Elizabeth" (inspired by her recent visit to Chicago). In shaping up the song he used the line "I want to go to England so's I can meet the Queen." During the actual recording however, his eye fell on a magazine cover photo of Her Majesty and Lightnin cunningly avoided misunderstanding by singing the line "l want to take my wife to England so's she can meet the Queen. " The song certainly represents a new kind of international diplomacy with its opening line "Yeah, you know this world is in a tangle now, baby, look like this world is going round and round."

The completeness of Lightnin's expression, his ability to focus his personality in song, places him in the centre of the blues tradition. All of the circumstances of his life and choice to remain close to the source are vital contributors to his art's veracity. He is a folksinger who still knows which are his folk. Ultimately, Lightnin's greatest gift is his complete confidence in his own ability to "make it up as I go . . . "

Always apprehensive about strange experiences, Lightnin' has recently grown less wary of travel. Photos and live-concert recordings which he has been shown and heard have given him the realization that interest in the blues extend far beyond the Third Ward. He has discovered that his contemporaries— often men of lesser ability and those far divorced from their sources—have enjoyed the benefits of concert stages in distant lands. He has already found that a stage offers the same freedom as a street corner. He has partially rejected the latter only because of the uncertainty of "having to be like a beggar." Yet the street corner or the concert stage is, he knows, the ideal situation in which to grip and surprise an audience.
 

"Texas is where I'm from and where the blues is from," he says, "and it's where we'll always be—but still and all, if there's people over across that water that like my blues and want me over there, I'll go . . ." His impulse to do so has the pure joy of a child's hug. After reading Belgian critic Yannick Bruynoghe's enthusiastic review of his old records recently reissued on Score, Lightnin slapped his leg decisively and said "I'm just going to have to go over there and sing that man a song."